Single mom finds inspiration to complete degree thanks to her 2-year-old son

LAS CRUCES - With graduation on the horizon, many students are pushing to complete their final exams and projects.

One single mom owes her perseverance to her 2-year-old son, whom she brought with her to classes on a daily basis.

Savannah Chavarria will be receiving her diploma for an associate's of science degree on Thursday from Doña Ana Community College. She shared her story as her 2-year-old son, Landon Chavarria, ran around the lobby of DACC. Aside from Landon's squeals of excitement and Chavarria's voice, the school was otherwise quiet with classes having wrapped up.

"Everyone in my family worked," Chavarria explained. "It was hard to find someone to watch him, so I brought him to school."

Chavarria, 27, had Landon in July of 2019. Before he was born, she was in a six-year relationship with her ex, which she described as abusive. She said that being pregnant with Landon was what woke her up and motivated her to get out of that setting. She left when she was just four weeks pregnant.

"I didn't want to have a baby in that (environment)," Chavarria said.

Chasing her dreams to make a path for her son

Chavarria grew up in Las Cruces. After high school, she moved to Texas where she earned her dental assistant license and met her ex. Her certification is only valid in Texas so, once she left the state, she knew she had to find a different path.

Now, she wants to be a doctor — the first in her family.

Last year, Chavarria applied to the radiology program at DACC, a program that certifies radiologic technologists and is offered at nine clinic locations, but she wasn't accepted. This year, she's applying again and has high hopes. She will know her results in June.

If she is accepted, she wants to go on to earn a bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees. Even if she doesn't make it in this year, she will apply to New Mexico State University.

Chavarria said she owes a lot of her inspiration to Landon.

"It's kind of to prove that you can have kids and your life's not over," Chavarria said. "Everybody thinks you have kids, and that's it.

"I want to show him that I can graduate … I chase my dreams. Because honestly a lot of people in my situation would rather work than go to school, but my dream is to be a doctor … He gets to see me live my dream."

She added that her ultimate goal is to get Landon through college.

Pushing through the pandemic

Because of an ongoing custody battle with her ex, Chavarria could not leave Landon at a daycare. She explained that putting him in daycare or letting someone other than family care for him during her classes could endanger her custody status.

When she started school in the fall of 2019, all her family members worked full-time, which meant there was no one to watch Landon for her.

"(A challenge was) doing my homework and dealing with Landon at the same time, because I spend every waking moment with him," Chavarria said, adding that she would spend four to five hours on homework some days.

Chavarria said that it was much easier to have Landon in her classes before he started walking. Now, he wants to run around and explore.

But during the pandemic and online learning, things really changed.

Because all of her classes were at home, she said friends and family were even less likely to help out with watching Landon.

"I'd have a class in the morning, so I'd have to keep him entertained while in class," Chavarria said. "You could see it in my grades. I had a 3.8 and it went down to a 3.5 because of Zoom. Before, I could come to school and find someone to watch Landon. But since it was on Zoom, everybody's like, 'You could just stay home and watch him.'"

But things are looking up. Chavarria currently lives with her mother and step-father. Her mom has recently had more time to help with taking care of Landon. Last year, Chavarria received the $6,000 Hakes Brothers STEM scholarship, which paid for her 2021-22 tuition.

She said her family has been very supportive, and they are all proud of her accomplishments.

Her dad is especially proud. She said he raised Chavarria and her two sisters as a single parent.

"He's always bragging about me," Chavarria said.

Landon already knows the alphabet and can count to 29. Chavarria said her dad recently started teaching him some basic addition.

"He likes learning things and taking stuff apart and putting it back together," Chavarria said. "I tell my mom he's gonna graduate when he's like 12."

Chavarria is excited for the bright future her education can offer her and her son.

She's planning to start a tuition fund for Landon soon.

"It's really important to me to keep him educated," Chavarria said. "It's the little things like when we walk upstairs, we count. When we walk, we count."

If you go:

• DACC will have their commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 5 at 7 p.m. at the Pan American Center. Livestream can be viewed at www.youtube.com/c/DonaAnaCC.

• NMSU graduations will take place Friday and Saturday at the Pan American Center. All master's and doctoral degree commencement ceremonies are scheduled for Friday, May 6 at 6 p.m.

• Undergraduate commencement will be on Saturday, May 7 at 9 a.m. for the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, College of Business, College of Health, Education and Social Transformation. At 2 p.m. on Saturday, the commencement ceremony for the College of Arts and Science and College of Engineering will take place.

• NMSU ceremony livestreams can be viewed at www.youtube.com/c/NewMexicoStateU/featured.

Miranda Cyr, a Report for America corps member, can be reached at mcyr@lcsun-news.com or @mirandacyr on Twitter. Show your support for the Report for America program at https://bit.ly/LCSNRFA.

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This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Amid Pandemic, Single mom earns degree, finds spark in 2-year-old son